The fifth instalment of the X-Men franchise may very well be its best yet. It certainly has managed to revitalise a franchise that, let’s face it, was more than a little exhausted. A prequel to the X-Men trilogy, ‘X-Men: First Class’ flashes back to a time when Professor Xavier and Magneto were more than friends...they were allies. The Cuban Missile crisis is recruited, once again, as an interesting focal point for the action and some of the movie’s most impressive sequences are built around a confrontation that might just lead to a nuclear war and the end of the human race.
With this movie, the franchise revisits a favourite theme: now that human evolution has reached a higher plain with the evolution of mutants, is there room for good old fashioned Homo Sapiens? Professor X and his motley band are all that stand between us and utter destruction – and you’re never quite sure we deserve the saving anyway. The X-men series have always presented a powerful study of prejudice and discrimination with mutants being treated with distrust and loathing at every turn. A comic book metaphor, if you needed one, for the racial and religious tension that continues to wreck havoc in the real world.
The movie also explores the fascinating responses of the mutants to their own mutation – Xavier’s profound understanding of it, Hank’s desperation to escape his, the rage and despair that drives Eric’s. With the last, ‘X Men: First Class’ takes the villains of the previous trilogy – Magneto and the shape shifting Mystique and presents them in a sympathetic light. (Leaving us free to save our loathing for the despicable Sebastian Shaw – the man dubbed IGN’s 55th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time).
The great strength of this movie is the wonderful casting. Michael Fassbender proves an able predecessor to Ian McKellan as a young Magneto. (You may remember the actor from ‘Inglorious Basterds’). His portrayal is intense – his character visibly struggling with an overwhelming darkness and the tentative ‘hope’ Xavier struggles to kindle. Which brings us to the delicious James McAvoy as Professor X. Sigh. Patrick Stewart, eat your heart out. Between the two of them, they pretty much overwhelm the cast of younger mutants (Beast, Havoc, Darwin, Banshee, and briefly Angel). But Shaw is well represented by an oily Kevin Bacon, while January Jones simply sparkles as Emma Frost.
Shaw, once Dr. Schmidt, is seen manipulating a young Erik Lensherr in a German concentration camp in occupied Poland in 1944 – if you think that sounds like a familiar scenario, it’s because it is. That’s the opening for the first X-Men movie released in 2000. This time around though, we get to see what happens next and to understand why Erik will eventually wear the telepath proof helmet as Magneto.
Director Mathew Vaughn (Kickass, Stardust) replaces Bryan Singer, Brett Ratner and Gavin Hood from the previous movies. (I’d like to hold Hood in particular personally responsible for the tediousness of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine.’) Fortunately, the action in this film is decidedly more upbeat – rarely pausing in one locale for long.
The camera shifts from Geneva to Oxford, from Las Vegas to Argentina, Miami and Washington, D.C. over the course of a breathless 132 minutes. Alas for his fans, Hugh Jackman appears only for a few seconds as a surly Wolverine, but we barely miss him. Fans of the comic book are compensated by the considerable pleasures of mutant spotting as a number of new characters are briefly introduced. |
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